Sulphur and Cigarettes
by dot-sye
Summary: He smelled like he was burning; of sulpher and cigarettes. Sora needed to remember that smell and Riku wanted to help. Sora x Riku, Axel x Roxas. One Shot. NOT AU!


**Disclaimer:** characters not mine, idea is... please link me if you use this idea  
**Pairing:** Sora x Riku and Axel x Roxas  
**Note:** This _isn't _AU!!! Although it could be considered partially depending on what happens between Sora, Riku, and Kairi in the future Kingdom Hearts.  
**Rating: **if looking at the guidelines it should be an **M** even though i feel it should be **T**. to be on the safe side i will rate M, apologized for anybody who expected anything more explicit  
**Summary:** He smelled like he was burning; of sulpher and cigarettes. Sora needed to remember that smell and Riku wanted to help.

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**Sulphur and Cigarettes**

When they returned to Destiny Islands Sora started smoking.

He didn't know what made him smoke but he remembered the first time he asked for the small cancer stick from an elder man and he took it with him.

His parents yelled at him for weeks when they found out then they just gave up. Tidus and Wakka got mad at him because it made it harder to breathe and he wasn't that good at their games anymore. Kairi got up and walked away every time he lit a cigarette. After a while she noticed the signs, the little twitch where he rubbed his ring finger with his thumb or the way he sometimes held a pen while studying, and she walked out when she saw those.

Riku understood.

"He smoked too, you know?" he asked once when he joined Sora sitting on the small island and looking at the sunset.

Sora didn't know who he was talking about but nodded. He took the last drag of his cigarette and threw it away in a coughing fit.

The first time he had smoked he coughed so bad he wanted to throw up. It took him about a month to get used to it and he still hated the taste. Even the part deep inside him that had made him start smoking in the first place hated it.

But Riku understood.

Riku's father smoked so the older boy found it easy to steal a few of the cancer sticks here and there for Sora.

"I hate it." Sora confided in him once.

That night, long after the sun had set, the two boys sat alone on the beach and Sora smoked slowly. He wasn't looking at anything around him. His eyes were glazed over and Riku noticed that they were a shade darker than usual.

They remained their darker shade when they finally focused on the cigarette in his hand. The smoke that fell from it was a contrast to the darkness around them and both boys found it fascinating.

There was a bluish tint of smoke that fell from one end, rising to the top and curling in intricate patterns around and through itself. Then there was the yellow-tinted smoke that came from the filter end, crawling up the cigarette, around Sora's fingers and dancing around the blue smoke. The two never mixed.

Blue and yellow. Blonde hair blue eyes.

As opposite as red and green. Red hair green eyes.

Sora thought of Axel when he saw the smoke.

The redhead seemed like the type of person that would wave around a cigarette while talking animatedly about his passions. When he was alive… when he had passions.

_But he did have passion._ A voice inside him echoed.

He had thought of Roxas even when he died, everything he had done had been for Roxas.

Axel had smelled liked sulphur and cigarettes.

Riku remembered. He nodded to himself and took out the box of matches he had taken from the windowsill at home. He placed one of the cigarettes between his own lips and lit it expertly.

Sora's face lit up. "You shouldn't…" even as the contradicting words trailed off he saw those jade eyes piercing him and he knew.

Riku understood. Sora thanked him quietly.

Unlike Sora's first experience Riku seemed perfectly fine. He coughed a few times at first, the smoke brought tears to the corners of his eyes, but by the end of the cigarette he smoked as expertly as Sora.

Sora leaned his head on Riku's shoulder that evening as the last rays of the sun dipped over the blue horizon. The sky was painted in red and orange, the clouds above and behind them turning from purple to blue while the water appeared on fire.

"Do you know why the sun looks red as it sinks below the horizon? It's because among the countless colours comprising light, red travels the greatest distance."

Riku looked up when he heard those words and felt something stab at his heart.

_You're just trying to show off, Axel. _Riku nodded and took a long drag of the cigarette he had. _Just like always._

Sora stopped smoking so often. Riku did it for him.

Kairi got mad at them both but she never noticed the signs and twitches from Riku. They always came from Sora.

Riku knew those signs by heart.

When the boy saw red his eyes glazed over and if they remained like that for too long Riku lit a cigarette. Sora was brought back down by it and always scooted closer to the older boy.

After about four more months Sora stopped smoking completely.

The smell stuck to Riku, cigarettes and sulphur from the matches.

He smelled of fire. He smelled so familiar to Sora that the boy's heart hurt.

No… not his heart. His being? Not that either. It was something inside him that made his heart ache, but it was not his heart.

The sunset became their moment. They would sit together anywhere where the horizon was visible and Riku would light a cigarette with his matches. The smell from the cigarettes was always different.

Then Riku found a brand he liked. It was a brand that Sora's inner self approved immediately. Riku knew that brand as he had seen the redhead from Castle Oblivion carry it around endlessly.

Then he turned old enough to buy his own and still smoked with Sora sitting beside him. Kairi still hated them for doing that but something inside her made her understand.

When Sora got that far off look in his eyes and started rubbing his ring finger with his thumb the girl just looked at Riku. The older boy at that point already had a cigarette out that he lit. He knew the signs long before she even saw them. Sora breathed in deeply when the smell from the match hit the air around them then closed his eyes and breathed in as deeply when Riku exhaled the first cloud of smoke.

But there was still something off.

The first time they kissed it surprised Riku so much that he ended up choking on the smoke still lodged inside his lungs. Sora had pulled back with a frown and turned his gaze away worriedly.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay…" Riku coughed out and finally cleared his passageway as much as he could. "Just caught me by surprise, that's all."

Sora looked up with hopeful blue eyes. "Can I?"

The older boy felt a blush creep to his cheeks.

The kiss was short and chaste and when Sora pulled back he licked his lips. His sky blue eyes darkened and glazed over and a small smile was on his lips.

'_He smoked too, you know?'_ Sora still wondered who Riku had been talking about but the taste of the cigarettes on slightly chapped lips seemed so familiar that he didn't care.

He knew that brand by heart… no, not by heart. He knew that brand by taste.

When Riku took Sora's virginity the brunette lit a cigarette.

Riku felt something in his chest compress. It took him two cigarettes and a quarter of the third to regain himself and take it from Sora. The afterglow was smouldered in smoke.

Sora felt so right.

Riku hated it but lit another cigarette.

"Why did you choose this brand?" it had been almost two years ago that Riku had chosen that brand.

Sora lay in his bed at the dorms of Twilight Community College. Riku sat at the edge with the sheet draped over his lap and the ashtray balancing on his knee. "Because it's the brand he smoked."

There was no reason to lie.

Sora scooted from the bed and his naked chest met with Riku's bare back. The brunette turned his best friend's head and plucked the cigarette from his lips. Riku didn't have the time to exhale before those lips were on his.

He breathed out on automatic but it seemed that was what Sora wanted. He took in the smoke as if it was fresh air and breathed it deep into his lungs. When he pulled back and exhaled the faint cloud that left his lips hid his darkened eyes from Riku.

Their relationship was nothing more than friends. They were best friends that went everywhere together. Sora hung out with Hayner, Pence, and Olette from the college when he didn't have classes and Riku did. Riku hung out with Seifer, Fuu, and Rai when he didn't have classes and Sora did. They were best friends with strange benefits based around cigarettes.

They shared a room in the college dormitories although they were a year apart. Riku had been able to pry the window open so that they didn't have to go outside to smoke every time. And their window faced the sunset.

"Who was he?" Sora asked that question one evening.

"Who was who?" Riku mumbled around the cigarette hanging loosely from his lips.

He had started smoking more often. It was an addiction now. The twitches became his own and Sora was always there to light his match when he noticed Riku's fingers tapping in a certain pattern on the desk.

"Who smoked too?" the question made the older boy freeze a moment. He finished off the sentence he was writing before turning to face his best friend. It had taken him almost four years to ask that question so Riku decided that Sora needed the answer.

"Axel."

Sora nodded and turned away. He had known all along. That was the smell that had radiated off of Axel during the brief moments they were together. When Axel had faded away it smelled like he was burning into the darkness. It had smelled like sulphur and cigarettes.

Riku put out his cigarette. When he looked up Sora was walking towards him. He knew that look. He knew that darkening of the younger boy's eyes. And he understood. He forgot his essay and got out of his chair. Riku was still almost a full head taller than Sora.

But for Sora he felt too short. He should have been taller, he should have been skinnier. His grin should have been wilder and his voice annoyingly infatuating.

Nothing was right. Not even the way he kissed him. Not the way he caressed him so gently that it made him want to cry.

But the smell was right.

Sulphur and cigarettes.

That was the first time Sora cried after they had sex.

Riku didn't know what to do. He reached to light a cigarette but as soon as the smell of sulphur hit the younger boy, Sora jumped up. He threw the match away, not caring if it was still aflame when it had landed on their carpeted floor. Riku was glad it had died in the fall

Sora dressed and left the room without a word.

Riku lit a cigarette to calm his nerves.

They didn't touch again for weeks. Sora was breaking inside, Riku could see it, but he could not force the younger boy into his arms. Riku was breaking too.

He ran out of cigarettes faster than usual, his job wouldn't provide him with a new pack until the start of next month.

Sora kissed him the day before he bought a new pack.

He cried the day after that.

Riku broke. He didn't understand any more.

It had been easy when he had known Axel and Roxas. He had known the two Nobodies were involved in ways that their heartless bodies shouldn't have allowed. And he felt now that Sora was feeling the brunt of the emotions those years ago that had come from Roxas.

Roxas to Axel.

There was no Sora to Riku.

It was Roxas inside Sora to Axel's smell. No Riku.

He finished his new pack in a day.

Sora gave up on trying. Riku didn't understand.

Summer break came.

Four years. It had been four years since Riku started smoking.

When they returned to Destiny Islands for the holidays they were greeted by Kairi. She yelled at Riku when the boy went to light a cigarette around her. Her reason caused the cancer stick to drop and Sora to light almost the entire match box on fire.

"I'm pregnant," the girl was smiling widely. Both boys were at a loss for words. Three months in the girl looked as beautiful as before.

That night Sora kissed Riku before the older boy could light a cigarette. That night they made love and Sora did his best to distract Riku from lighting a cigarette afterwards.

For the first time ever the afterglow was glowing.

Sora was feeling that something inside him, that need for the sulphur and cigarettes, was slowly dying out. Day by day, week by week. Summer vacation ended and they returned to school.

Their winter break came. They delayed going back to school for two weeks when it was over. Kairi had given birth.

She had a baby boy. The boy had her blue eyes, one shade darker than Sora's, and his father's blonde hair. She named him Roxas because the name just seemed to fit.

Riku agreed.

Sora never felt that urge for sulphur and cigarettes again.

Riku understood.

When they returned to Twilight Town they spent the first night standing on the clock tower, overlooking the distant sky as the sun was setting.

"It's like the sky is on fire," Sora mumbled under his breath, his blue eyes glazing over and turning a shade darker.

Riku let out a sigh. Out of habit he took out the pack of cigarettes and noticed it was his last one. He took out the box of matches and noticed two left. The first one he wasted just for the smell of sulphur to fill the air around them, the second one he lit intent on lighting his cigarette.

A strong wind blew from nowhere only into his hands and the fire died before he could light the cancer stick. When he looked up he noticed Sora staring at him. "I want you to quit."

Riku smiled and nodded. He pulled the cigarette from his lips and let it drop, uncaring of where it landed somewhere in the distance below.

Sora pulled him in for a kiss and pulled back shortly, licking his lips. He eyed the older boy carefully and nodded. "Tastes better this way."

Riku smiled, because Riku understood.

**End**

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please read and review  
note: if anybody insults smoking in any way, don't bother to review... i've had enough arguments about it and if i didn't smoke myself i wouldn't have been able to write this piece  
at least i made it a happy ending... give me props for that.... different ending than what i had originally wanted...


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